Will Oddball Dems Cause a 'Blue Ripple?'

David Catron of the Spectator takes a look at a few of the "very large number of truly weird candidates" running for the Democrats in congressional contests and thinks the GOP could pick up seats in the upcoming elections:

The most prominent exemplar of these strange Democrats is Texas Senate nominee James Talarico. The Lone Star Liberty PAC released a new ad featuring videos of Talarico saying things that all but guarantee his loss in November regardless of which Republican he faces. For example, when asked to name something he loves other than friends or family he answered "I love the trans children." He is also shown saying, "There are many more than two biological sexes. In fact, there are six." Speaking about immigration policy he says, "Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front." Talarico is now posing as a populist, but it's unlikely that this masquerade will fool many Texans.

The next one he looks at is Graham Platner, who sported a Nazi tattoo for much of his life and would have been rightly drummed out of his race by now had he been a Republican.

You get the idea.

I got déjà vu.

This sounds like a repeat, with the parties reversed, of Biden's midterms, of which I wrote:

As I argued recently, the Trumpist wing of the GOP, which is harming it so much, must be defeated. How did it do? Let's look at Trump's hand-picked senatorial candidates, telequack Mehmet Oz, anti-abortion philanderer Herschel Walker, election denier Blake Masters, and traitor to the Electoral College Ron Johnson.

Sadly, as of now, any or all of them could still win...

These were all winnable races, but only Ron Johnson won -- in Wisconsin. Trump's loony candidates arguably cost his party three Senate seats then.

So now we have a race that, given the unpopularity of the President, could be a wave election for the other party, and that party is doing now what Trump did then: make things unnecessarily close by seemingly going out of the way to find candidates that a normal person wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

This time it's worse, as we need not only a check on a lousy President, but a repudiation of MAGA, which has proved inimical to American ideals and poses a real threat to the Republic.

-- CAV

Updates

6-3-26: Corrected Ron Johnson's home state.